No Indians appeared on that day or the next. Early on Saturday (August 23) the smoke of scattered fires was seen off to the eastward beyond the Minnesota. Had Little Crow captured the fort, and were his warriors burning the farmsteads? To ascertain, Colonel Flandrau sent over a detachment of seventy-five men, which soon encountered a fire from its left front and was obliged to retreat to the eastward to meet reinforcements expected from that quarter. Crow’s real attack came from the northwest, over the terraced plain stretching along the river above the town. Flandrau had left some three hundred and fifty men, ill-armed and undisciplined. When aware of the approach of the Indians, he moved them out and posted them upon the slope of one of the terraces, with a line of skirmishers to the front. At eight o’clock Crow’s warriors in a long line with flanks curved forward moved on in silence till within about a half mile of the line of defenders. Then raising such a shout as only savages can, they broke into a run, firing as they ran. The skirmishers fell back in alarm, and the whole line, spite of the exhortations, polite and other, of Flandrau and his officers, retreated to the barricades. The Sioux did not follow in, but stopped and sought cover in the emptied outer buildings of the town.
The fire returned from the barricades discouraged the Sioux from attempting an assault. Late in the afternoon a demonstration was made below the town by a party, some of which wore white men’s clothes. Thus misled, the brave Captain Dodd, second in command, unduly exposed himself and was shot to death. Other weak attempts were made by the persistent Indian leader, which came to naught. Ten of the defenders were killed and fifty wounded. Flandrau estimated the attacking force to be six hundred and fifty in number. Expecting a renewal of the fight on the following morning, Colonel Flandrau ordered the destruction of all buildings outside his fortification. Including those burned by the Indians, one hundred and ninety were destroyed. Indians rarely fight by night; and on Sunday morning they sent in a few long range shots, and the “Battle of New Ulm” was over.
Nearly two thousand people had been confined in the narrow fortified space. The women and children had been huddled in the cellars. Food was failing and sickness breaking out. Their homes destroyed, it was resolved to move the whole population to Mankato, thirty miles distant. On Monday morning they took the road; the women, children, and wounded on wheels, the men and boys on foot, escorted by the extemporized army. The column reached its destination late at night, and the refugees met with a generous reception. The next day, August 26, Colonel Flandrau’s force dissolved.
Little Crow had staked everything on his attack on New Ulm. Had he captured the place, and dispersed its defenders, Mankato, St. Peter, Le Sueur, and all the towns in the valley would have been abandoned, and the Sioux would have resumed possession of the fairest part of their ancient country. The Indian commander understood that after this failure there was little hope of success in any offensive movement unless better supported by the upper bands. He therefore broke up his camp below the Redwood and reëstablished it behind the Yellow Medicine. His men burned the buildings at the upper agency, and the mission houses.
The Minnesota legislature in the extra session of 1862 authorized an official count of the victims of the Sioux massacre, but as no citizens could be induced to undertake the service for a per diem of three dollars in paper money, no such reckoning was made. The estimates vary from 500 to 1500. That of Agent Galbraith, made with deliberation, may be accepted: In Renville County, 221; in Brown, 204; in other Minnesota counties, 187; in Dakota Territory, 42; total, 654. His estimate of government property losses is: On the upper reserve, $425,000; on the lower reserve, $500,000.
When Governor Ramsey got the tidings of the outbreak of the Sioux in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 19, his knowledge of Indians made it unnecessary to deliberate upon the measures that must be taken, or upon the choice of a proper person to have the command. For that duty he instantly selected his old political opponent, Henry Hastings Sibley, whom he commissioned as colonel and commander of the Indian expedition. Mr. Sibley had maintained his robust and athletic constitution; he knew the whole region of operations, spoke French and Dakota, understood Indian nature, and was acquainted with all the leading men of the Sioux nation.
Early the next morning Colonel Sibley left Fort Snelling by steamer, with four companies of the Sixth Minnesota Infantry. At Shakopee he was obliged to disembark. It was not till late on Friday, August 22, that he reached St. Peter, which was to be his base of operation. Here Jack Frazer, who had escaped from Fort Ridgely, brought him the information that the whole body of Sioux chiefs and braves, probably two thousand in number, were on the warpath. His four hundred raw infantry men would be no match for them, the more because the Austrian rifles furnished them at Fort Snelling were unfit for use. Sending down to Governor Ramsey for reinforcements, with suitable arms and ammunition, Colonel Sibley devoted himself to impressing teams, provisions, and forage, and making other preparations for his campaign. Governor Ramsey in a proclamation issued on the 21st called on the militia of the Minnesota valley and frontier counties to arm and mount and join Sibley’s expedition with a few days’ subsistence. Companies from the valley towns, from Minneapolis, Faribault, and elsewhere reported. The remaining companies of the Sixth came up with Springfield rifles. On the morning of the 26th the expedition marched for Fort Ridgely. An advance party of mounted men reached the post on the following day, to the joy and relief of the long imprisoned garrison. The main body came up on the 28th and made an intrenched camp outside the fort. To protect the column from rear attack around its left flank, Governor Ramsey appointed Judge Flandrau colonel, and authorized him to collect and dispose the militia companies coming in from the southeastern counties. He presently formed a line of posts from New Ulm and Mankato up the valley of the Blue Earth and on to the Iowa line.
Yielding to the prayers of refugees in Fort Ridgely, whose relatives were lying unburied about the ruins of their homes or along the roadsides, Colonel Sibley decided to send out a burial party which should also serve as a corps of observation. It marched on the morning of August 31 under the direction of Major Joseph R. Brown, whom Colonel Sibley had attached to his staff. His party was made up of Captain H. P. Grant’s company of the Sixth Infantry, fifty mounted men under Captain Joseph Anderson, a fatigue detail of twenty, and seventeen teamsters. The column moved slowly, halting to bury sixteen bodies on the agency road, and at nightfall bivouacked on the bottom near the Redwood Ferry. In the morning Major Brown with the mounted men crossed the Minnesota and scouted through the villages above the agency, to find them deserted. The infantry force buried some twenty bodies of Captain Marsh’s men, moved up the north side, struck across the prairie to the head of Birch Coulie, and went into camp on a singularly ill-chosen spot, at which Major Brown arrived at sunset. The wagons were parked in open order, and the animals were tied to picket ropes stretched between them. Within the circle so formed the party went early to sleep, some in Sibley tents, but most under the open sky. At daybreak they were awakened by a blood-curdling yell and a volley of bullets apparently from all quarters and at short range. Captain Anderson, who had seen service in the Mexican War, ordered his men to lie low and fire at will. The infantry commander, after a vain effort to form his men in line, gave a like judicious order. The savages maintained a murderous fire for an hour, at the end of which ten of Brown’s men were killed and forty more wounded, himself included. Desultory firing continued throughout the day, in the lulls of which possible arrangements for defense were made. The bodies of over ninety horses were strung along, and earth, dug up with three spades and one shovel, and with sabres, bayonets, pocket-knives, and tin plates, was heaped over them. The pits thus formed served as good cover for the men who were prudent. At two in the afternoon the boom of a cannon from the eastward gave notice of approaching relief, but night fell and it did not come. The sound of the morning’s battle was heard at Sibley’s outposts, fifteen miles away. With all possible dispatch he sent a relieving party consisting of three companies of the Sixth Infantry, fifty mounted “Rangers,” and a section of artillery, and gave the command to Colonel Samuel McPhail of Houston County. The party crossed the east branch of Birch Coulie and came within sight of Brown’s camp, but the prudent commander did not think it wise to risk his men in a battle. He therefore recrossed the branch, took up a safe position for the night, and sent Lieutenant Sheehan back to Sibley for reinforcements. He reached the fort unharmed, but his horse fell dead soon after from gunshot wounds. By daylight Colonel Sibley reached McPhail’s bivouac with the remaining companies of the Sixth and five companies of the Seventh, which had arrived the day before. The Sioux, seeing themselves outnumbered, made but feeble resistance to his advance and rapidly left the neighborhood. When Colonel Sibley rode into the impounded camp thirteen men lay dead, three more were soon to die, forty-five were severely wounded, and others had received abrasions. For more than twenty-four hours the men had lain without water, and they were worn with their ceaseless watch. The “Battle of Birch Coulie” has been commemorated by a monument erected at the expense of the state, in regard to which an unfortunate controversy has raged. Through misinformation the commissioners accredited the command of the expedition to another than Major Joseph R. Brown. To one looking back after the lapse of a generation it would seem that no one would care to be credited with the leadership of the disastrous affair. Colonel Sibley had given the most precise and emphatic directions to guard against surprise and ambush.
Colonel Sibley now had a double problem before him. He must overtake and destroy the Indian forces, and that without giving their commander pretext to slaughter the three hundred prisoners in his possession. It was rumored, probably by Little Crow’s instigation, that if attacked he would put these prisoners between his men and the whites. A policy of caution and delay was therefore desirable. It was also necessary for the reason that the command at Fort Ridgely was in no way prepared for war. The men were not yet clothed, the supply of food was insufficient and precarious, and ammunition had not yet been provided in sufficient quantity.